Children’s Imagination and Entering into the World of Picture Books : A Study of Picture Book Researches in the Late 20th Century Japan

This paper is an attempt to re-examine the question raised by Teiji Seta from the perspective of the activities of imagination in children’s encounters with picture books. Seta raises the following question, “What is a person’s first encounter with books, and what does it mean?” Children’s picture book experiences are often described as that of children entering picture books. What does the metaphor “entering into picture books” or “entering the world of picture books” mean? An elucidation of this question is the subject of this research. In this paper, I consider the activities of children’s imagination and the structure of picture books that evoke such imagination. I also consider the correspondence between pictures in the picture books that tell the story and children’s vivid imagination of the images and stories in the picture books before they develop the respective literacy. Finally, I reinforce this consideration from episodes in a kindergarten. The first three chapters of this paper introduce the subject—“Children’s Encounters with Picture Books.” In this paper, I clarify that the encounters are discussed as “the experience of children entering into picture books and adventuring in it.” In Chapter 4, as a clue for my research, I provide an overview of the “crystal structure” of picture books and children’s literature advocated by Seta and discuss children’s immersion into picture books through their vivid imagination. In Chapter 5, I discuss in detail how the pictures and words in picture books appeal to children’s imagination. Seta and his colleagues— Momoko Ishii, Tadashi Matsui, Kyoko Matsuoka, and Rieko Nakagawa—have clarified the characteristics of picture books, highlighting that their pictures tell stories and that their words draw pictures in readers’ minds. They also claim that children’s imagination, elicited by the pictures and words of picture books, enables children to enter picture books. Chapter 6 takes up an episode that took place in a kindergarten by considering Seta and his colleagues claim that children’s picture book experiences—before they acquire literacy skills—enable a deeper immersion into the world of picture books. In the final chapter, I summarize this paper and list the future challenges by clarifying that the picture book theory of Seta and his colleagues was based on “picture books for children” and “picture books of stories.” Further, I point out that alternative picture book theories have emerged, which oppose the children-story-centered argument.departmental bulletin pape